Over my years of helping others build a food storage for their food insurance.. I’ve noticed 3 major mistakes my clients have been doing… and they DON’T EVEN REALIZE IT! All of these mistakes are wasting your money and space. Keep on reading to learn how to save money with your food insurance by NOT making these 3 common food storage mistakes.
Updated October 2020 – This post contains affiliate links. Read my affiliate link disclosure here
Common Food Storage Mistakes
These might seem kind of weird and out of the blue, but it’s because they are the mistakes YOU DON’T KNOW YOU ARE MAKING.
When interviewing and talking with clients about food storage, these are the 3 main mistakes I see them making which is wasting their money with food storage. And, let’s just say, I’m sick of seeing money get flushed down the toilet. Because honestly, I bet you can think of about a thousand other uses for that money, can’t you?
Download your FREE Food Storage Plan with shopping lists and recipe included.
1. Spending extra time re-packaging foods.
But everyone tells me I need to be re-packaging my foods! I’m holding firm here. You ARE spending extra time (and money) re-packaging food you don’t need to repack.
A lot of items such as flour, sugar, and other baking items don’t need to be taken out of their packaging to re-package. By building your food storage from a plan (learn how with this free online class) and using recipes you cook regularly, you don’t need to worry about food going bad because you’ll use it within a year.
For example, my food storage plan has me making 3 loaves of bread twice a week, meaning I need to store a lot of white flour. I’ve got about 10 buckets with white flour in their original paper 5 lb packaging. Do I make bread twice a week? No… so it takes me about 3 years to rotate through all that 1 year supply of flour with my occasional bread making/cooking making items. But it’s still good for 3 years when kept in its packaging and in a bucket to keep critters out. Everyone tells you to buy #10 cans of flour or re-package it to keep from going bad (depending on where you live, you may need to do this).
Even buying in bulk, mylar bags, oxygen absorbers, buckets… all of that stuff starts adding up. Especially when you are on a tight budget. 
2. Not sure how to eat without power.
So many clients are worried about how they are going to eat their food without power. Now, this is a legitimate worry… so I’m not going to say it’s not. But I see 2 groups of people from this:
- They just don’t start food storage at all.
- They spend tons of money on generators, sun ovens, and other items they don’t know how to use.
I interviewed close to 100 people who have had an emergency and used their food storage, 83% of the reason people had to use their food insurance was from loss of income NOT FROM A DISASTER WHERE THEY HAD NO POWER. This was either caused by a sickness or accident affecting the main income maker, a loss of job, or other reasons.
This tells me 2 things:
- If you aren’t building a food storage because you don’t know how to cook with it when the power goes out… you’re missing on the whole reason for food storage (83% of the time you will need food storage will NOT be from lack of power).
- When the power does go out… there are many other things that you’ll need… You will use your 72 hour kit, before you’ll start diving into your food storage. And in 3 days’ time, it’s likely your power may be on.
Save your money and don’t invest in expensive ways to cook your food, until you’ve built up a good 3-6 month supply.
Download your FREE Food Storage Plan with shopping lists and recipe included.
3. Storing food you don’t enjoy.
Now, I know this is obvious right… but many people don’t realize they are storing food they don’t like. There are a few reasons for this:
- You were given a lot of extra food storage someone was looking to give away (this is a mistake I made).
- There was a lot of food storage on sale, either from someone getting rid of it, case lot sale, or some amazing Black Friday deals (another mistake I made).
- You were following a general food storage list that had no connection to your family’s diet at all.
Sometimes it can be on accident. A friend just found out she is celiac… and they’ve had plenty of wheat stored for years… now what?
Either way, whether you meant to or not, you are wasting money and space by storing food you don’t need and won’t enjoy. There is no point in storing tons of honey, rice, beans, wheat, etc if you don’t cook with them now.
Instead, build a custom food storage plan, from what YOU eat. Then the money you do spend on food insurance will be enjoyable and you’ll know you will eat it. It won’t waste space by just sitting there.
In conclusion
The #1 excuse for not building a food storage is the cost. Learn how to build a food storage by avoiding these common food storage mistakes, you’ll enjoy your food storage. This will help you use your money and space more wisely.
P.S. So many people tell me, after building a custom plan, how they have gotten rid of the food they don’t need. They were able to store twice as much in the same space because they weren’t storing items they “thought” they needed.
What do you store that you don’t need? Comment below (I used to store BBQ sauce).
Download your FREE Food Storage Plan with shopping lists and recipe included.
Further Reading:
How to plan your long term food storage
Long term food storage options
Online class: The Proven System To Enjoy Your Food Storage
If you liked this post, please let us know by leaving a comment below and clicking those share buttons to tell your friends. As always, we appreciate you taking a minute of your time to spread the word about preparedness.
This post contains affiliate links. Read my affiliate link disclosure here
2 thoughts on “3 Common Food Storage Mistakes- You Don’t Know You’re Making”
Sure, using mylar bags in addition to the buckets adds cost, but if you have a vermin problem then it’s critical to avoid waste. I’ve lost a few bags of lentils, mung beans and rice to mice, so now I bag all my LTS rice and lentils in mylar in buckets. Mung beans I store in my kitchen since I’m storing them to sprout and the last thing I want to do is put them in an airtight bag with an O2 absorber.
And while a Sun Oven is a pricey splurge, once you have the basic supplies stored it’s worth consider budgeting for. My propane supply will only go so far to grill with, but a Sun Oven works as long as the sun shines without additional cost. A few extreme events would make it less useful, but after a hurricane or blizzard it’s usually sunny out and its nice to be able to cook without using up any fuel. And since its almost impossible to overcook food in the Sun Oven, it’s easy and fun. During any multi-day event I plan on cooking a casserole in the morning and leaving it in the Sun Oven all day to keep warm, so I can eat brunch and dinner from the same pot…. And for those on a tight budget consider saving up and trying to buy during their annual Ding, Dent, Demo sales – this year I got the email on January 5th.
As to your question about wasted space: I’ll freely admit I store mustard and I absolutely hate mustard…but I know some folks enjoy it so if a few people join us it’s most likely not a waste. Worst case, I can barter it for something more useful…sure, it takes up space but I’m blessed with a decent size space for LTS so it was worth the small space loss for flexibility.
Love this! So many good tips and suggestions. As we move back to the sunny AZ we’ll be investing in a Sun Oven. I hear the are fantastic, and look forward to testing meals out with it. I do agree it’s nice to store extra food that you don’t like to barter with, but for those with limited space I always recommend focusing on what they will need first. Thanks for all your tips, keep them coming.